Beware the Medical Magic Bullet

The Synergistic Health Approach works by implementing multiple proven beneficial preventive actions toward attaining synergy in prevention of the major disease processes that rob us of vitality and cause premature death. Avoid The Magic Bullet: In America it is our mindset to look for one “magic bullet”- being one pill, one nutritional agent, or one step or another to stop a disease process. This is understandable when we consider we have seen some true medical wonders for common medical conditions such as aspirin for fever and pain, the “purple pill” limiting irritating stomach acid, the statin drugs such as Lipitor and Zocor for dramatically improving cholesterol and reducing heart attack risk. Further reinforcing our confidence that one step will do it is that in the last century we witnessed such wonders as vaccination elimination of major epidemic infectious diseases such as Polio and Small Pox, the introduction of penicillin, and other medical breakthroughs.

There are plenty who believe that the “magic bullet” of a good diet or of regular exercise will take care of most prevention goals. Or, as witnessed often amongst patients today, they’ve become convinced by an infomercial that calcium from coral or some other agent is the answer to all their ills and major disease risks. In the not so recent past, Dr. Linus Pauling had us counting on high dose Vitamin C as the bullet to prevent the common cold and cancer. Later, mainstream medicine supported the movement for patients to count on Vitamin E supplementation to prevent multiple major diseases including heart attacks. We react to this news in aherd behavior - the news gets out and we all run that one direction for a while. Most recently, I have watched my wife and her teacher friends stampede to the Vitamin D promise of 7% overall reduction of mortality, 70+ % reduction in colon cancer, and significant reduction in breast cancer risk. Many leave the past “magic bullets” behind when the new one shows up on the scene.

Why? Hey, we believe in “Yankee ingenuity” and we expect medicine in America to “come through”. It's not all the pharmaceutical companies fault that the average American citizen patient goes with the Lipitor and maybe an aspirin as their only preventiveshield against heart attack and stroke, nor is it primarily the fault of the patient’s doctor. The patient allows the doctor and pharmaceutical company ads to scare them only so far. And, again, they have been sold hard over the airways on taking the statin drug such as Lipitor and the aspirin by Bayer or St. Joseph’s. They’ll give in to the simple step of taking one or two pills per day and avoid moving ahead with the harder suggestions the doctor gave of exercising daily, working on diet to get weight into ideal range, and taking nutritional agents such as B vitamins, antioxidants, and fish oils.

Evidence strongly suggests they will get a lot of “bang for their buck” with the statin/aspirin combination likely reducing the chance of a first heart attack by 50%. They are likely benefiting from some significant synergy with the combination of the proven step of low dose aspirin and the proven heart attack reduction step of taking a statin drug. But, why not go for 95 or even a virtual 100% elimination of heart attack risk by adding several other proven beneficial health steps or agents? Why not go ahead and add further preventive steps or agents until we are into the exponential improvement curve rather than lower down the exponential curve or in an additive-only zone for heart attack prevention? That is a Synergistic Health approach. The Synergistic Health Approach works by implementing multiple proven beneficial preventive actions toward attaining synergy in prevention of the major disease processes that rob us of vitality and cause premature death.